You can’t improve what you don’t measure

Tuesday 15
October 2013, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC),
Suva, Fiji –

Once a disaster starts to unfold, it is too
late to start looking for the information needed to manage
it. This truism has been discussed for the past decade and
remains relevant today for the disaster management
business.

According to Jotham Napat, Director of the
Vanuatu Meteorological and Geohazards Department,
‘Strengthening our IT system and developing a disaster
loss database will assist our efforts in disaster risk
reduction.’

Disasters strike as floods, cyclones,
tsunamis, landslides, earthquakes, droughts or other intense
natural phenomena or emergencies that threaten or destroy
lives and property. Speed in saving and sustaining lives and
re-establishing essential services and livelihoods depends
on the information at hand to manage the risks.

From
guiding relief efforts to assessing risks of future
disasters or tracking loss patterns and trends, disaster
risk management needs damage and loss data and information.
The Pacific now has a regional disaster loss database
managed by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community’s
(SPC) Applied Geosciences and Technology (SOPAC)
Division.

This database aims to provide useful information
on various parameters of disaster impacts, including
national and sub-national data and analysis, where
available. Effective disaster information management is a
vital component of preparedness and prevention, and in turn
of reducing damage and loss.

Key benefits of a validated
Pacific disaster loss database include the opportunity to
analyse and identify disaster risk patterns and build risk
knowledge about disaster-prone areas, hazards and
vulnerability. At a minimum, the database links standard and
customised variables for loss of life and financial costs,
including damage to infrastructure, to guide policies and
monitoring of initiatives that improve decision-making and
priority setting.

To strengthen understanding of damage
and loss in the Pacific region, SPC’s Disaster Reduction
Programme is facilitating a workshop on 28 and 29 October
2013. The aim is to explore data and information sharing
opportunities to optimise disaster risk management
planning.

The workshop will cover systematic collection,
quality and consistency of data, information flows before,
during and after disasters, and links between databases and
projects. Outcomes are expected to strengthen the evidence
base and improve the ability of key agencies to manage the
information underpinning improved disaster risk management
in the
region.

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